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FYI – November lichen task force newsletter

<--- Previous issue | Next issue ---> | Tip Line SYMBIOSIS: The lichen task force newsletter — November 2023 A look at what we've accomplished, working together
Our tiny task force is working to improve coverage of the world's lichens – unique symbiotic organisms composed of one or more fungal partners with one or more photosynthetic partners. They're found around the world, covering more than 7% of the earth's surface – from frigid polar areas to the steamy equator, from the edges of lapping seas to the highest mountains, and from city walls to the most pristine wilderness areas. They provide food and nesting material for myriad animal species, may be major players in the creation of soil from rock, and produce substances which may prove beneficial in our fight against pathogenic organisms. Want to learn more? Join us!	Articles of note New featured list: Outline of lichens (October 29) New good articles: Teloschistaceae (9 September) – a large family of mostly lichen-forming fungi Elke Mackenzie (18 October) – a noted British lichenologist who was also part of a secret WWII mission to Antarctica Teloschistes flavicans – the type species of the type genus of the family Teloschistaceae
Project news Esculenta has been on a tear recently and now has six articles under consideration for good article status: Anaptychia ciliaris, Buellia frigida, Chrysothrix chlorina, Placidium arboreum, Pulchrocladia retipora, and Punctelia. Esculenta has also submitted Teloschistaceae (which received its GA star in September) for consideration as a featured article. We now have articles about two additional noted lichenologists: Vitus Grummann and Oscar Klement. "Year of description" categories have been added to all genus and species articles. The number of genus and species articles continues to grow. We now have 935 articles about lichen genera and more than 2100 (including redirects) about lichen species. It's not all good news: The number of articles on our cleanup listing has also grown, with 5% of the task force's articles showing some sort of potential issue. These range from missing or unreliable sources to dead external links and orphaned articles. Some of these could probably be sorted relatively quickly, if you're looking for a fast way to help the project improve the quality of its coverage.
Newsletter challenge The "Phytochemistry" section in our Stereocaulon ramulosum is convoluted and virtually unreadable – and has had a "clarification needed" tag since July of 2022. The editor who whips this short section into shape (and the one who cleans up the associated references) will get public kudos in the next newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!

FieldianaZool, etc. comments

For example, at Peregrine falcon:
<!-- FieldianaZool114:1. FieldMusNatHistZoolSer18:343. Forktail16:147. Micronesica37:69. RevBrasOrnitol14:101. -->

A search for comments starting with each of those 5 returns 761 results.

Is this information useful enough to keep? If so, can/shouldn't it be incorporated more formally into the article, either as a citation, a reference template, as a property at Wikidata to be used in {{Taxonbar}}, or some other way?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:13, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe all of these short journal citations as hidden comments were added by User:Dysmorodrepanis~enwiki. I've been removing them as I come across them. I haven't bothered to look up most these publications, but the ones I have looked at don't have anything useful to add to Wikipedia articles. Forktail16:147 can be seen here (the article is "The ornithological importance of Thrumshingla National Park, Bhutan"). It's mostly a checklist of birds found in the park, with detailed accounts about the presence in the park of some threatened species, and just a line in the checklist for non-threatened species. Go ahead and get ridden of these hidden citations. Plantdrew (talk) 20:41, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

 Working - will point edit summaries back to here.

I think I've found at least the vast majority of, if not all, variants with this search that returns 1236 results, a small # of which contain extra text like URLs and prose that I'll save for others to manually review.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:23, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I've found ~200 comments that are at the end of specific entries in species lists, like on Eulamprus:

*''[[Concinnia tenuis]]'' <small>([[John Edward Gray|Gray]], 1831)</small> bar-sided forest-skink, barred-sided skink<!-- ZoolMedLeiden82:737. -->

or kind of everywhere like on Aceria, which are both unlike the bulk of the comments, which are vaguely tacked on to the references section. Should these line-specific comments be removed semi-automatically as well, or be kept for manual review?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:59, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Those are probably safe to remove. I expect that these citation will probably not be very relevant to the genus as a whole (but may be relevant to individual species in the list). The one in Eulamprus says "Hinulia elegans...may be a synonym of Eulamprus tenuis". That's specifically relevant to the species Concinnia/Eulamprus tenuis, not to either genus (that source is cited conventionally at Concinnia, although I don't think it really belongs there either).

I haven't found a non-paywalled version of the source in Aceria. It does describe 5 new species, so would be very relevant in articles about those species, and it may have some relevant information about some previously described species (e.g. new records of host plants).Plantdrew (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done-ish ~1150 trivial comments removed.

I kept running into more and more journals until I didn't (i.e. there might be more out there), and ended up with a grand total of 26 unique search-prefixes (≲ 10 false positives creep in due to trying to keep the beginning of the search as cheap as possible):

AmMusN|AnnalenDes|CanJEarth|Condor|Cytogenet|Fieldiana|FieldMus|FolHist|Forktail|Geobios|JOrnith|JSyst|JTrop|JVert|Micronesica|Notornis|OrgDivers|Palaeontology|ProcCali|RafflesBull|RevBras|Revista|Waterbirds|WilsonBull|Zool|Zootaxa

The insource search with all 26 times out of course, so split into chunks that don't tend to throw a timeout warning: 28 + 48 + 19 + 38 + 17 + 13 + 44 + 35 + 163 = 405, which boil down to 362 unique pages.

I decided to err on the side of caution for now, and not remove the line-specific comments, and not remove those on pages at least somewhat outside WP:TREE, which are ~24% of the original total pre-run. Can revisit later when more of them have been checked.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:09, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

@Pvmoutside: I just noticed Western Balkan barbel from 2017. What's your opinion re keeping/removing these comments?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:22, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Journal citation comment addendums

• ActaZool|Adans.|AnimBehav|AnimalBiology|AnnalsOf|Auk
• BahamasJSci|Biodivers|BiolConserv|Cybium|BiolJLinnSoc|Boll. Soc. Hist. Nat.|BulletinOfThe
• Caldasia|Cotinga|Evolution|FieldColumbMusGeolSer|Journal of Tropical Ecology|Molecular Phylogenetics|Nat. Hist. PI.
• OrnitholSci|PacificScience|ProcOklaAcadSci|SmithsonianContrib|ZOOLOGICAL SCIENCE|Zoomorphology

Anyone please feel free to add on to this list and I'll rerun everything after a good while.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Authority of Megalonyx

@Al2oh3: has changed the authority of Megalonyx to Jefferson, 1799, over Harlan, 1825 The vast majority of the literature I have seen uses the Harlan authority (e.g.) [1] [2] [3], though I have managed to find one use of the Jefferson authority in the literature ([4]) Al2oh3's justification for doing this in the edit summary is The authorship of the genus Megalonyx was corrected to Jefferson, 1799 (rather than Harlan, 1825). The description in Jefferson's 1799 paper fully meets the standards for availability of a genus-group name according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (2000). Harlan (1825) respelled the genus as "Megalonix," but also clearly attributed the genus-group name to Jefferson. Harlan's name, "Megalonix" is an "incorrect subsequent spelling" (ICZN, Article 33.3), and therefore invalid. To be honest, I am not a massive fan of this. This seems like WP:OR to me without an ICZN petition on the matter, and we should actually prefer what the majority of actual researchers are using over our own interpretations of the code. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:49, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Corrected by whom? YorkshireExpat (talk) 09:18, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

We need a secondary source saying it has been corrected. The argument may well be correct, but Wikipedia guidlines don't allow us to make that determination. A primary source saying it is wrong is not sufficient, when the majority of sources use that authority. —  Jts1882 | talk  13:14, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

If it helps at all, I've found more instances of "Megalonyx Jefferson, 1799" in the literature: [5] (from 1904), [6] (from 2007, page 609), [7] (2010 thesis, page 37), [8] (from 1995). The last one in particular in passing claims that "Megalonyx Jefferson, 1799" was non-binomial though, which may have some relevance to why Harlan, 1825 is used instead by some authors? "Jefferson, 1799" is also the authority used in Nomenclature Zoologicus (see page 71). Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:05, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Its a strange one in a way. Both are listed in ZooBank, however, Megalonyx Jefferson 1799 has no type species listed whereas Megalonyx Harlan 1822 does, that being jeffersoni. If no type has ever been added to the Megalonyx Jefferson 1799 then the name is unavailable and hence the correct name would be that authored by Harlan in 1822. After such a considerable amount of time I would say the ICZN would have to wiegh in on that and its likely that the older name would be deemed nomen oblitum in the absence of any other ruling. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:12, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Actually... the obligatory validation of a genus with a type species only applies to genera described after 1930. This case would not need a type species to be considered valid. —Snoteleks (Talk) 23:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes that is true, but to use the genus now requires a type species to be subsequently applied which does not seem to have ever been done. As such, and considering the the significant amount of subsequent usage of the Harlan name would require the type species to be applied. It would no doubt be challenged with the ICZN at this point as the Harlan name clearly has stability which is a major consideration in the code. Without the subsequent designation of a type and the consideration of stability I would consider the Jefferson name nomen oblitum. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 07:58, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia another point here is that at least the Amson et al. 2014 paper you link that uses Jefferson does so without comment or justification, to be fair the paper is largely about another genus Thalassocnus hence they did not need to spend much time on that, but the point is this is not a primary revision of the issue at hand here and hence should not be used as an authority on the issue of authorship of Megalonyx. To make this change we need an accepted by revision publication that explains why they are resurrecting the Jefferson name. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 08:22, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree that it is best to indicate the authorship of Megalonyx as disputed. That approach does reflect the recent literature. Al2oh3 (talk) 20:19, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Al2oh3 What recent literature has made a nomenclatural assessment that resurrects the name under the authorship of Jefferson? If there is no analysis then they could just be wrong for all we know. In general all recent lit has had the name under Harlan, those acceptions I have seen make no justification of this. You cannot just use an alternative nomenclature without justification, doing so is usually ignored, not deemed disputed. Please cite the paper that has the justification for using Jefferson. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 03:59, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

There are certain things like gender agreement which - being automatic and mandatory under the ICZN - do not constitute "original research" and do not require a citation to be included in Wikipedia. The issue of Megalonyx is a little bit more iffy. I can say, however, that the point above about Jefferson's work being non-binominal is false. Having read the work in question (linked twice, as references 4 and 6 in the WP article) it is a Code-compliant pre-1930 description. Note in particular the following Code Article: "11.4.1. A published work containing family-group names or genus-group names without associated nominal species is accepted as consistent with the Principle of Binominal Nomenclature in the absence of evidence to the contrary." There is no evidence that Megalonyx was not proposed as a Linnaean-concept genus name. As such, I personally do not see anything that would refute using Jefferson 1799 as the author of the name. Yes, the name was treated only once as a capitalized name, and subsequent uses in the paper used "megalonyx" or "magalonyx", but that is not evidence for non-binominality. More to the point, perhaps, is that it seems that historically Jefferson was accepted as the author (e.g., in Neave), and then at some later point someone argued to change the authorship, and this act was apparently done in contravention to the Code. If it's a matter of Code-compliance, which is objectively determined, then I don't think we're dealing with an OR issue at that point. One can always cite the Code, and then state which of the two alternatives in in compliance, much as one would cite the dictionary for the definition, pronunciation, or etymology of a word. Dyanega (talk) 19:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

One final point: Article 12 states that a description, definition, or an indication are required to make a name available prior to 1930. The inclusion of a known species is one of the methods of indication, and is not a general requirement for pre-1930 genus-rank names. Many genus-rank names prior to 1930 had no originally included species, but they are still available names. Further, the type species of Megalonyx is M. jeffersoni, as it was the first included species; this is made explicit in Article 69.3: "69.3. Type species by subsequent monotypy. If only one nominal species was first subsequently included in a nominal genus or subgenus established without included species, that nominal species is automatically fixed as the type species, by subsequent monotypy." Please also note that this Article explicitly states that a genus can be established without included species. Again, I see no reason not to accept Jefferson as the author of the genus. Dyanega (talk) 21:45, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you Dyanega and it would seem that the Jefferson description is valid, my issue is one of stability and that it should not be for us to change the status quo, I asked for a primary pub that has recognised this then I am fine to follow it. I agree the Jefferson description meets the code from what I can gather and monotypy is a valid species designation, the second species was added 1832 I believe. I have been seeing it as oblitum ie forgotten due to the subsequent overwhelming usage of the Harlan name. I would rather that was corrected in valid literature so we do not end up with a dual nomenclature and the vast majority of publications and checklists use Harlan and have done so for a long time. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 01:36, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Having read the account, it was light on descriptive details relative to modern scientific papers, though given that the three word phrase "Cornibus deciduis palmatis" (literally "palmate deciduous antlers") in an auction listing was enough to validate Megaloceros [9], I can certainly see why Dyanega thinks its enough to validate Megalonyx. My concern, like Faendalimas, is that this feels like something that should be resolved by ICZN petition, and that's not Wikipedia's purpose to correct authorites that are widely used the scientific literature. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:04, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Wether or not it went to a petition would be up to the workers on that group, I work with reptiles so its not one I would likely weigh into at that level if it came up. However, my gut feeling is that push comes to shove someone working on mammals would probably put in a case requesting authorship be stabilised under prevailing usage. If that happened under Art 82.1 it is probable that the Harlan name would stand until the ICZN made their decision which can take some time. This is why I would prefer to see this reviewed and accepted in the Primary Lit before we make the change. Which will affect us at Wikispecies too as we are using the Harlan name there too. GBiF has both names as valid which is doubly unhelpful. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 04:59, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have stated this more clearly: Jefferson's authorship is cut-and-dry. The ICZN generally does not accept a case unless there is some question about the correct application of the Code. That is, formal applications to the Commission generally involve setting aside the rules of the Code in order to achieve a desired outcome that is otherwise contravened. In this specific case, only if everyone wanted Harlan to be the author would there need to be a formal application and vote and ruling, because Harlan is not the author under the Code. An application sent to the Commission to "fix" Jefferson as the author would be rejected without review, because the Commission would not need to intervene at all. However, if what you want is simply a published statement that Jefferson is the author, then anyone can publish a very short opinion piece (one page, maybe two) in the BZN that says "The correct authorship and date of Megalonyx is Jefferson, 1799". Dyanega (talk) 19:11, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree, it is, as I was getting at we are an encyclopedia, not a journal article. But my worry is someone may try to conserve the Harlan usage. Not the other way around. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 02:40, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

References

Notability of taxa inquirenda

Hello! Trying to do some cleanup at Category:Taxa that may be invalid, and while most are fairly easy to resolve, I was wondering how we should treat taxa inquirenda. Do they get the same free notability pass that an accepted validly described taxa does, or should they be redirected to a parent taxon? Or is there a secret third thing I should do for these? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:08, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Hiding synonym lists in taxoboxes

Long lists of synonyms for species or genera in taxoboxes are often best set up to be initially hidden. To make this simpler, I have now added the necessary code to {{Species list}} (of which {{Genus list}} is a synonym). Basically it only requires adding |hidden=yes before the list of taxon name/authority pairs. See Template:Species list#Hiding the list. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:56, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Appreciated. Will be nice not to have to look up the "collapsible list" syntax every time I want to do that, and then usually getting the double-wrapping wrong in some way. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:14, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

@Elmidae: that's exactly why I did it! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:35, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Same problem here, too. —  Jts1882 | talk  17:39, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Neoselachii into Elasmobranchii

See Talk:Elasmobranchii#Merge_Neoselachii_into_this_article. Participate if interested. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:25, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to change Eukaryota to Eukarya

See Talk:Eukaryote#Eukarya or Eukaryota? for a discussion to change from using Eukaryota to Eukarya. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Adherence to correct spelling of scientific names as determined by nomenclatural Codes

User:UtherSRG has, in the process of refusing to allow an uncontested move of an article from an incorrect spelling of a genus name to the ICZN-compliant correct spelling of that name, stated today that "We aren't beholden to the ICZN." As an ICZN Commissioner, I think it's important to establish, here, that third-party sources that are in demonstrable violation of the ICZN (or the other nomenclatural Codes) are not acceptable as sources for Wikipedia (except in the context of being cited as using the wrong spelling). Just because 9 out of 10 authors misspell a scientific name does not mean Wikipedia has to accept that as the correct spelling, if even a single authoritative source exists that demonstrates that a different spelling is correct under the relevant Code. Is it really necessary or appropriate to compel editors to submit a formal request to WP:RM every time they find an outright and easily-confirmed error in a taxonomic article in Wikipedia, instead of simply fixing it?

Scientific names are not a "popularity contest", and no organism can have more than one spelling of its scientific name; only one spelling is correct, and all other spellings are not, and need to be fixed if they appear anywhere, Wikipedia included. More to the point, there are no third-party sources that take precedence over nomenclatural Codes, so there should be no expectation that - as UtherSRG suggests - a scientific name shouldn't be changed in Wikipedia until and unless there are multiple third-party sources available for citation that use the correct spelling. That's certainly not how taxonomy works, and I don't really think that all the admins here would agree that this is how Wikipedia works, either. In fact, in taxonomic practice, species-rank scientific names can change spelling even where NO publication appears with the correct spelling: this often happens with mandatory gender agreement (e.g., when a genus is synonymized with a genus of a different gender, authors do not always publish the new spellings of all the included species names; it's "an exercise left to the reader"). It is therefore entirely possible for the correct spelling of a scientific name to have ZERO published citations - but the Codes tell us what the correct spelling must be, even if it is never literally published, and that same accepted principle certainly should cover Wikipedia. Is this really subject to dispute?

This isn't a petty matter, or personal thing, this is a really fundamental aspect of how the science of taxonomy works, and how it interacts with Wikipedia, and I think it's important to be clear whether or not Wikipedia acknowledges formally-accepted rules of science as having primacy, so I hope we can have a civil discussion about this. It affects ALL scientific names, which are governed by well-established nomenclatural Codes, and account for a very large percentage of the articles in Wikipedia. If there is nothing explicit in Wikipedia policy regarding the need for scientific names to comply with the relevant Codes, then maybe now is a good time to make a push to do so. Dyanega (talk) 20:19, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

If the original genus name is clearly verifiable in the original description, then i see no problem with changing it to that, even if the majority of taxonomic literature is incorrect. I would like to see evidence from the academic literature that the spelling error is acknowledged if available. The problem is though, why would researchers trust the spelling of species on Wikipedia over what other scientists are using in the academic literature? I certainly wouldn't on first glance.

I think a more significant issue is your mass changing of species names to correctly match the grammatical gender, which results in species names that have never been used outside of Wikipedia. That's essentially WP:OR, and it doesn't really do anything to correct what researchers are using, because why trust Wikipedia over the academic literature? This is something that needs to be resolved in academic venues, rather than the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:56, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I suppose that WP:COMMONNAME was the argument used, which would make it a Wikipedia issue. I would argue that (for extant species anyway) that binominal can hardly be described as common names. This would be different for dinos (e.g. T. rex), and I opened a can of worms by moving something boldly, but I do have move rights. If I'd have found an article about a taxon using the scientific name misspelled, I'd have probably just moved it without the RM. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Preferrably changes like these would be done with reference to the proper ICZN communication and/or entry on the matter. The Morrison Man (talk) 21:51, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Adding self-made corrections to several species names in article space is not only WP:OR, as previously stated, but also extremely confusing to the public and should be avoided at all cost. If the ICZN has issues with a nomenclature, it should resolve these issues with the concerned researchers and avoid doing it via proxy encyclopedia. The nomenclature used on Wikipedia should reflect the current scientific consensus on the matter in the published sources, not the opinion of private individuals, be them ICZN consultants or New Latin amateurs. Any species names that you have changed in the past to satisfy the expectations of the ICZN should be moved back to their situation within the sources. Don't forget that Wikipedia is often used as a generalist and practical handbook, even for researchers, and can give to the people with power to change the nomenclature the false impression that the changes have been done in effect in the litterature, which is often not the case. By modifying Wikipedia articles arbitrarily to satisfy your opinion on the requirements of the ICZN, you're actively going against the interest of the ICZN in the long run, and spreading potential disinformation on the Internet.

When I tried, myself, to include an etymology for Stegotherium back on my early editing days, inferred on the etymology, in New Latin, of these terms, this addition was criticized, and I took it down, due to it never occuring in any sources consulted. Similarly, your expectations on spellings are in a quite similar situation.

If 9 out of 10 authors misspell a scientific spelling, this is a misspelling. If 10 out of 10 authors misspell it, this is a consensus. As an ICZN commissioner, you should be able to correct, by yourself, any infractions to the code, or at least to contact the respective authors. Wikipedia is not a proxy for a scientific dispute, but must observe the consensus. One paper would suffice, but we need at least one paper.

Mandatory gender agreement, or anything like that, only concerns scientific publications. Wikipedia should be a reflection of those scientific publications, not the scientific publication that makes the decision. The correct spelling of a scientific name can't be decided by one random editor here ; if we allow you to take these kinds of decisions, which we shouldn't, we would also allow any other editor to add their own interpretation of the correct New Latin name, which would quickly become, as we say colloquially around here, the Far West, and would end up doing infinitely more harm than good to public perception of scientific names, academic consensus, and naturally to the ICZN itself.

A really fundamental way of how Wikipedia works is by removing, by all means necessary, any original research, and to focus on substantiated observations in the sources. Contrarily to academic publications, Wikipedia is only a repository of information already available elsewhere, and as such can not be the support of any taxonomical change, even if a code comes into conflict with it. I'm entirely favorable with the ICZN's effort to standardize scientific nomenclature, but Wikipedia is not the place for such an effort. All modifications done to already existing article to correct its declensions or genderizations should be treated as original research if not substantiated by at least one published work.

In the case of Cyrtophleba/Cyrtophloeba, the ICZN doesn't matter much. What matters is that Rondani, the genus author, takes natural precedence, and that any subsequent author committed an orthographic mistake. If this name had not been effectively published, the ICZN would not take precedence, as the correct orthograph would be the only one present in the source material, Cyrtophleba, as far as Wikipedia is concerned. I've grown to know a bit a number of my fellow editors, and I know for a fact that, for most of them, knowledge of Latin, Greek, and the, often tricky, Latin-Greek fusion that is taxonomical Neo-Latin can be quite lackluster. Forcing them to systematically correct any scientific name they stumble upon to respect a code that is outside the general guidelines of Wikipedia will be a quite dangerous endeavor. Larrayal (talk) 00:55, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Now that a few people have weighed in, I hope I can be allowed to address a few of these points. The argument I was making was general, not focused on the specific case that triggered it, but since User:Larrayal raises that case, let's use it as an example. What it exemplifies is the conflict between authoritative and non-authoritative sources, and my argument is that an editor who is competent enough to distinguish between authoritative and non-authoritative sources should be allowed to act on that knowledge. KNOWING that a given source is spelling a name wrong, and another right, and acting accordingly, does not - I would contend - constitute "original research" any more than consulting a dictionary for the spelling of a word. I assume that Wikipedia accepts the spelling given in a dictionary before any other sources, no matter how many have it wrong. For example, when I Google Search for "tumeric", the exact match only, I get over 5 million hits. However, that spelling does not appear in Wikipedia except as a redirect to the correct spelling. If editors are able to exclude "tumeric" from Wikipedia because it is misspelled, then it should be just as easy to exclude a misspelled scientific name when there is an authoritative source that shows it is wrong, and create a redirect - just like for "tumeric". In the case of Cyrtophleba/Cyrtophloeba, the ICZN is crucial to the resolution. Why? Because Rondani spelled it both ways in the original publication, and only the ICZN gives explicit instructions as to how such a case is resolved. In fact, the list of misspellings is extensive: CRYTOPHOEBA, CYRTHOPHLAEBA, CYRTHOPHLEBA, CYRTOPHLEBA, CYRTOPHOEBA, CYRTOPLOEBA, and CYRTHOPLAEBA - but only Cyrtophloeba is accepted under the ICZN, because it was selected under ICZN Article 24.2.4 by the original author acting as First Reviser. There is one print source that explains this, and one online source, the BDWD. There are numerous other sources that use the wrong spelling, including some sources that people who don't know any better will generally consider authoritative, such as GBIF. Bear with me here, please, because this very, VERY intimately relates to the argument that several of you have made, that Wikipedia exists outside of the academic sphere. It most emphatically does not. Wikipedia is linked inextricably to all of those online resources like GBIF, ITIS, IRMNG, BioLib, Fauna Europaea, IPNI, WORMS, Fossilworks, etc., both directly and through intermediates like Wikidata and Wikispecies. Most of those sources, however, are not authoritative sources of either taxonomic data, or nomenclatural data. Some are aggregators, and accumulate both good and bad information, without discriminating, and most of the others are manually-curated by people who are not taxonomists. What this means is that a lot of misinformation exists, and persists, through this interactive network of online sources that are effectively immune to being corrected. Even a world authority is unable to go in and fix a misspelling in any of these sources. This directly contradicts the claim made above that somehow taxonomists could exercise control over the appearance of misspellings online. They CANNOT. Aside from taxon-specific resources like the BDWD, the majority of online sources of scientific names are NOT screened by taxonomic experts, and most are unresponsive to external feedback. The name Cyrtophloeba is a perfect example of the problem - there IS a definitive published source that very explicitly gives the correct spelling and explains it, as well as the BDWD, but only a few of the many online sources have incorporated this information. GBIF, for example says that Cyrtophloeba and Cyrtophleba are BOTH "accepted" names, which is literally impossible, but because GBIF lists the latter misspelling as "accepted", other sources have picked it up and propagated it. Wikidata does not include Cyrtophloeba at all, because Wikidata is generated from Wikipedia, and until recently, Wikipedia used the wrong spelling. The point is that PRINT PUBLICATION of the correct spellings of names typically does little - or nothing - to impact the appearance of these names in the various online sources, because that's not how these online sources work. There is either a time lag, or a labor lag, or some barrier, so what appears in print may or may not eventually find its way into these sources. That's where Wikipedia is different, and crucially important to the scientific community. Wikipedia (and Wikispecies) is perhaps the only venue where new scientific knowledge can be disseminated immediately and accurately. You don't seem ready or willing to acknowledge how important that is - the claim that Wikipedia is not used by academics is utterly disingenuous, as it ignores how little reliance modern scientists place on print publications, and instead rely primarily on finding information online. I've been helping train taxonomists for the past 25 years, and they now use Google Search for essentially everything, and most have never used a library. For almost any scientific name you type into Google Search, Wikipedia is going to be the first result. The next most common results are going to be these other online sources like GBIF, ITIS, IRMNG, BioLib, IPNI, and such. Since Wikipedia is the only one of these sources where errors in scientific names can be fixed directly, it is essential that Wikipedia ALLOW for misspellings to be fixed there. Otherwise, scientists - yes, scientists, not just laymen - are generally going to accept the results of a Google Search uncritically; in a very large number of cases, they won't know when a name they have typed in is misspelled, or what the correct spelling is, UNLESS there is an entry in Wikipedia that explains it. In other words, a misspelled name that has found its way online is going to propagate, proliferate, and confuse people until and unless there is an entry in Wikipedia that sets things straight. I am going to ask those of you who think I'm overstating the case to try an exercise: without referring to Wikipedia or Wikispecies, how easily can you determine, definitively, which of these two spellings is correct: Lepisma saccharina or Lepisma saccharinum? It's one of the most common insects in the world, so it SHOULD be easy, right? This demonstrates exactly the opposite of the claim that academia can keep its own house in order - academics use online searches to do their research, and especially for things like the spelling of scientific names, the majority of authoritative sources are online, and NOT in print. Wikipedia is supposed to present facts, not misinformation, even when that misinformation is widespread. Do people honestly feel that an editor who discriminates between misinformation and fact is engaging in "original research" by doing so, and therefore prohibited from fixing errors? To use one of the examples above, it IS original research if you manufacture an etymology that does not appear in a dictionary, but NOT original research if you're consulting a dictionary that does contain it. I don't see how consulting any of the nomenclatural Codes, and citing that Code, is fundamentally different from consulting and citing a dictionary. Dyanega (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Personally I'm with Dyanega on this one. The fundamental issue, I think, is what is meant by "verification", given that "verification not truth" is the requirement here. The most reliable source for the correctness of a scientific name that is governed by a nomenclature code is that code, not usage, whether by professional biologists or others. Of course we must mention widespread orthographic variants, but our articles should be titled and should use the name that is correct under the relevant code, always provided this can be clearly sourced to the code. (An advantage of the areas in which I mostly edit, plants and spiders, is that there are taxonomic databases regarded as authoritative for these groups, which usually have the correct names under the Codes and will make corrections if they are told and accept that there are errors. Also correcting botanical names seems to be less controversial – botanists have only recently abandoned Latin descriptions, so are still expected to know some Latin and follow gender agreement, etc.) Peter coxhead (talk) 12:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I also agree with Dyanega perpetuating clear errors is not in keeping with the concept of providing accurate information. I also do not consider such corrections as WP:OR there are afterall references with either spelling. As such the editor here should make their decision between those publications based on an assessment of compliance to the ICZN Code. It is also risky to accept incorrect spellings as, although possibly not the case in this situation, it can lead to unnecessary homonyms being apparent (pseudo-homonyms as they are not really homonyms they are incorrect information) and as an Encyclopedia striving for accurate information should be a priority. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 16:59, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Im NOT with Dyanega. If a spelling is not found in any source, we here at wikipedia can never, at any point be the source that first publishes it. I would highly suggest reading OR and deeply contemplating the repercussions if this dicussion were happening at the wider village pump forums. I suspect that Dyanega would at the very least be chastised, if not outright topic banned for violation of POV COI editing rules. Its problematic that Dyanega continues to introduce "corrections" in instances where there IS no reference to the orthographic variation being used.--Kevmin § 19:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, there are two distinct issues here. The thread started over a case where there were multiple spellings in the literature, and there was a source that explained which spelling was correct under the provision of the ICZN. When there are multiple spellings in the literature and a code-based argument for which spelling is correct, we should follow the code-based argument. UtherSRG's argument that we should determine the spelling to use by application of WP:COMMONNAME is nonsense. That's not how Wikipedia does taxonomy. If a species has been placed in different genera we don't decide which genus to place it in by looking at the number of Google hits for every combination. We follow recent sources that have coherent genus concepts. And when the IOC changes the vernacular name of a bird (usually due to a change in circumscription, but sometimes with no change in circumscription), Wikipedia changes the vernacular name (IOC vernacular names for birds are not WP:COMMONNAMEs, but COMMONNAME is not the sole thing to consider in titling articles).

The other issue, that Dyanega has brought up before is whether Wikipedia should correct spellings when there is only one spelling in the literature, and the spelling in the literature is incorrect under the provisions of the ICZN. This happens a lot with lepidoptera because lepidopterists don't care about gender agreement. Wikipedia should not be the only source for a spelling that is found nowhere else in the literature. I do see species epithet that I suspect don't agree with the gender of the genus. But I'm not certain that the gender of the genus is what I suspect it to be. And I'm not certain that the species epithet isn't a noun in apposition that doesn't need to agree with the genus. I guess it would be a little less OR if I changed a spelling while providing a reference that explicitly gave the gender of the genus (but I suspect a big part of the lepidoptera problem is that such references don't exist). Plantdrew (talk) 21:11, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I was referring to the case at hand specifically where there are multiple publications. The original spelling is always published it's in the original description, subsequent spellings are erroneous unless a nomenclatural explanation has been given. Which would mean you would have at least two publications to choose from if there are two spellings. I do appreciate that WP as an encyclopedia cannot make the first move on this I totally agree with Kevmin on that but this is unlikely to be the case in most instances. The reason I do not consider it WP:OR is because in the absence of a publication justifying an alternate spelling for a species name the only correct spelling is the one in the original description. That is not original research, you are following the original description. If there is a justifiable spelling change in a publication that is still not original research because again you are just following a review publication and should be doing so. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 21:48, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Higher-level taxonomy of lancelets

I was having a discussion on my talkpage with @Ucucha: User_talk:Hemiauchenia#Authority_for_Amphioxiformes regarding the authority of the order Amphioxiformes, the order used for lancelets. The taxonomic authority of Amphioxiformes also seems obscure. It's not listed in academic papers nor in ZooBank [10]. The earliest usage Uchucha could find is Berg, 1937 [11]. During the discussion, it came up that WoRMS doesn't even recogise Amphioxiformes, only the class Leptocardii. Should Amphioxiformes be removed from the taxobox? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Found this with a couple of references to 'Ordo Amphioxi' if that's any use? It has Branchiostomidae listed as a child. YorkshireExpat (talk) 20:29, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Bonaparte's classification (1846 I think) was influential but is not what we should use to decide on taxonomy in 2024. I've seen both "Amphioxi" and "Branchiostomiformes" for the order in various places. Ucucha (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

A related question: We have two separate articles Cephalochordate and Lancelet. Ostensibly the former covers the subphylum Cephalochordata and the latter the class Leptocardii and order Amphioxiformes, the only extant cephalochordates. There are some contradictions about whether there are one or two families. There are some poorly known and questionable fossil stem cephalochordates, but for almost any practical purpose "cephalochordates" and "lancelets" are the same. Should the two articles be merged? Ucucha (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2024 (UTC)